Your Cosmic Context: An Introduction to Modern Cosmology

by Todd Duncan, Craig Tyler

Your Cosmic Context provides a framework for exploring the nature and history of our universe. Equally well suited for independent reading and study or for a one-term general education course in cosmology, this book is a guide to the key insights of scientific cosmology, including the big bang theory and exotic entities like dark matter and dark energy. It also explains how we discovered the surprising things we now know about the distant reaches of space and time, and thereby serves as one of the best available illustrations of the scientific method in action.Starting Points, The Sky We See, The Universe We Discover Through Heat and Light, The Universe We Discover Through Motion and Gravity, Clues About the Cosmos, The Fabric of Spacetime, An Expanding Universe, Photons and Electrons, The Nuclear Realm, The Big Bang Theory, History, Density, and Destiny, The Story of Structure, The Emergence of Complex Life, What Does It Mean to You? Intended for those interested in the basics of cosmology.

Genres: Science

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 2008

Reviews

[Nguyen Thinh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book to begin studying cosmology. It is very informative, has various illustrations, and also provides great questions. Although it can be viewed as a textbook, the language in the book is not boring at all, as it is very captivating and connected to our everyday life. The book also contains a lot of science jokes (they are good jokes), and I very much appreciate the author's sense of humor in this book, which helps reading the book more interesting. In addition to introducing scientific facts, the book involves connections to philosophy, specifically one's personal view regarding the vastness of the universe. Your Cosmic Context encourages the readers to discover their personal cosmology and understand themselves after studying the Universe. It is a very good book to explore one's self and cosmology.

[Alex]

Wonderful. A must read for anyone interested in the world around them.

[Vicki Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

What really pulls the textbook together as a great informational tool for cosmology students is the humor, the space penguins, and the smiley faces on the suns.